Mumbai Diary: Friday Dossier

We are all in it togetherA group of friends get clicked outside a mall in Malad on the last day of the yearTheatre meets literatureTheatre icon Lillete Dubey has secured the rights to stage five stories from her friend bestselling author Shobhaa Des book Lockdown Liaisons Simon amp Schuster Ira and I did a performative reading for a story from the book last year which was reported on this page At that time I told Shobhaa that I would love to adapt some of these stories to the stage We acquired rights for five of them and will be presenting them as monologues a format that our theatre company hasnt explored with short stories While I will be performing one of them Ira and Joy Sengupta will perform two eachThe stories Dubey adds will have a universal appeal for being poignant documentation of a historic time of our lives with characters that belong to different socioeconomic backgrounds and age groups This is an interesting development because even though her theatre company had performed short stories in the past they have never been performed in the monologue format For over a year Harper Collins had been coaxing her to write a book and she has finally signed a threebook deal She will be starting off with a memoir that weaves the stories of her personal life and her work in the world of theatreRevolutionary readDr Usha Thakkar president of Gamdevis Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya is readying to launch a book this year on a subject and person very close to her heart freedom fighter Dr Usha Mehta Titled Congress Radio Penguin Random House India the book is an account of how the underground radio was conceived developed and implemented under the backdrop of the Quit India Movement in 1942 and the integral role Mehta playedAbout what prompted her to write the title Thakkar inset told this diarist It is one of the glorious chapters of our freedom struggle and not much has been written about it Mehta was my professor and she would often talk about it So I owe it to her to write about this It would also be so nice for young people to know about this chapterTechs going to be the way in 2021The past year has been one of many learnings and restaurateur Riyaaz Amlani is gearing up to implement the lessons to meet the needs of the postpandemic world The CEO and MD of Impresario Handmade Restaurants told this diarist that in 2021 he is throwing his weight behind technology A large degree of our focus will be on technology and digital transformation of restaurants Well try to see how technology can ease human interaction he said revealing that they will attempt to build an online food court where offerings from all their brands will be available under a single roof While cloud kitchen concepts are also on the cards Amlani wants to tap into the growing need for alternatives to work from home WFH More and more companies are allowing people to operate out of their homes but not everybodys home offers efficient WFH conditions Well be concentrating on building up workfromSocial to offer such professionals a safe option he revealed We wish him luckTake a queue from this vada pav stallShould old edibles be forgotten and never be brought to mind Not even for the sake of Auld Lang Synehellip or the outbreak Street food favourite Kirti College vada pav is still a hot number during the pandemic This diarist witnessed an orderly queue at the outpost near Shivaji Park in Dadar with loyal patrons taking away parcels of the snack that packs a crunch and punch with your chair after lunch Signage at the stall also stated that no eating is allowed near the venue Great discipline which we would like to see emulated everywhere now that Mumbais street food scene is back to buzzingFood for thoughtA food delivery app has just revealed the results of an internal study it conducted about consumer trends and there are some interesting revelations Mumbaikars for instance can take a bow for their generosity They tipped the apps delivery partners a total of 46 crores the highest amount compared to other Indian cities People in the city also have a large appetite for gulab jamun since that was the most popular sweet that customers ordered for Among savoury dishes biryani again topped the list with 22 portions being ordered every minute across India